


Their Template, Her Student II

by ilyena_sylph, Merfilly



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, kriffing sith plans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-10 04:49:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20522210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: Ahsoka cannot stay on Kamino. 99 has something to share. Asajj finds a reckoning.





	Their Template, Her Student II

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Their Template, Her Student](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13893489) by [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly). 

"Your word," Asajj began, "that the Order will do all it can to free the men from their enslavement, Jedi."

"Slavery is illegal in the — "

"Oh spare me, Jedi. I have lived and traveled in the Republic for long enough to know they merely put other names on it, and once the Separatists attack, they will do all they can to make it even more attractive to have slaves under a new name. That of a grand army."

Obi-Wan, not for the first time since being accosted by the pale woman, was taken aback. He wanted to disagree.

How many times had Anakin tightened his jaw or lost his temper over slavery in all but fact?

"Why are you helping them again?" he asked, trying to push her off her mental balance.

Asajj sneered at him. "Because I hold loyalty to my student higher than serving another's ambition. It will be interesting if the Order can actually maintain its vaunted role as servants of the Republic in the face of suffering on both sides, while maintaining a slave army."

"You seem certain that we will be placed over them," Obi-Wan pointed out.

"You will be. The Count's Master will see to it."

* * *

Ahsoka had, over time, brought the various members of the training teams under her own charisma and will, as her intensity, with the Force, had never truly been tempered. While Jango had avoided her, Skirata had studied her… and been studied in turn. Skirata had taught her language and culture to help her interface better with the regular clones, once he'd decided she was a useful thing.

She used all of this to her own ends, as she reached out to the other cities, using the communications array that her own staff had crafted for her. The Kaminoans would have no say in how the units were readied and deployed, she had decided, when Asajj parted from her to deal with the Jedi that had landed near her own ship.

"Marshals," she greeted as the senior most CC series men tuned in to her. "A Jedi has come. Ready the first years for deployment, according to all the ways we decided on."

"It will be done. If the longnecks resist?"

"Let our slicers lock them into quarters. No deaths… yet. We'll see how the Jedi live up to all we have been told, rather than waste our own resources."

"Yes sir!"

She let them go, even as she reached inside the strange visions she had been having, to decide her best plan forward. She wasn't even fourteen standard years old… but her brothers needed her to be as capable as they were to protect them from the war they were about to enter. She tapped out a comm code, to get one of her best Marshals.

"Cody? Please make certain the Jedi never finds Fett. Something tells me it will be better that way. Encourage him to take his brat and go."

"How strongly?"

"Don't let anyone get hurt if you can help it, but he needs to go."

"I'll see to it," he promised her.

* * *

Obi-Wan Kenobi realized, for all that Asajj was helping him maintain the pretense that he knew _all_ about the project, he was horrendously outmatched here.

Salt in his wounds was learning that the bounty hunter he'd tracked here had escaped when he was tangled up dealing with everything, and he began to suspect Asajj's motives.

"Did you warn him?"

"No, she did not."

Obi-Wan turned to find a not-even half-grown Togruta there appraising him. He thought he had seen such a being move away before the pale woman accosted him and brought him up to speed rapidly, but the rain had been awful.

"I sent him on his way. He is no longer necessary."

Obi-Wan thought that was a girl, but it could be hard to tell with non-humans, especially when Togruta were at least tri-gendered. She moved forward with easy grace, and he realized he had no more felt her approach than he had felt the Sith Warrior on Naboo. Yet, it was not a deliberate blanking, like then, but a hunter's natural camouflage at work. Looking directly at her, he saw Force potential written all through her.

"What?"

That was not his wittiest moment, but it would have to do, even if it meant the abrasive adult woman was smirking again.

"I had visions that end in nothing good for my brothers," she said. "I am Ahsoka Tano, and these men are under my care. They have been for most of my life, Jedi, and I do not take that lightly. The war will happen… but I will not allow so many of them to be lured into a trap as what I saw."

The men, created on the say-so of a Jedi Obi-Wan only vaguely remembered, were under the guardianship of a non-adult Togruta that radiated Force potential.

This was clearly outside of his expertise, and for once, he was willing to admit it.

"I will relay that to the Council," he said, conceding this nebulous entanglement to the woman and child.

* * *

Obi-Wan opted at that point to go to Naboo, since he'd lost the trail of the bounty hunter, to use their communications system to reach the Council. That point of business attended, he turned his attention to joining his padawan…

…and learned his padawan and the former Queen, now Senator, had absconded to Tatooine. That kept him occupied, tracking them and then aiding Anakin in his quest.

Meanwhile, the Council requested Master Shaak Ti go to this mysterious planet, while Mace Windu tried to determine just how and when the shatterpoints would break from these revelations.

Shaak Ti found the weather dreary, the Kaminoans repulsive, and the weight of these made men's lives weighing heavily on her.

Even with Kenobi's briefing, however, she was unprepared for either the small huntress or her pale teacher as they intercepted her after the meeting with Lama Su.

"The Jedi must be quite intrigued to dispatch another one so swiftly," Asajj said, eyes narrow. Her skin had been crawling, at remaining here, when Fett had likely taken word of her defection back to the Count.

"There are dire events afoot, and we wish to protect as many as we can," Shaak said, maintaining her poise.

"Even if that means spending the lives of those your Order caused to be created?" the small huntress pressed, and Shaak felt the naked probe along her defenses, listening for the full truth within the Force. It was… a little raw, but driven by such a need to protect the men here that Shaak was willing to overlook the ethics breach. Perhaps… she could refine that? If the existing teacher did not bring objections to the table.

"The order would prefer to lose none. How we proceed from here is as much on their choice now, as what the Republic wills."

The young one scowled, then glanced at her teacher, who gave a small shrug of a shoulder.

"Ahsoka Tano," the girl finally said. "My teacher, Asajj Ventress. She's going to tell you more about the Separatist leaders, and I am going to match my brothers to the Jedi that must lead them. They want to serve, because it's all they ever learned, but I am expecting the Jedi to take the best care of them and end the fighting quickly."

Shaak permitted herself to smile, and inclined her head. "Your expectations are our own wishes."

* * *

Having overseen the disposition of units and equipment to the Jedi, Ahsoka invested herself in acclimating Shaak Ti to her entire support staff. The Kaminoans fretted at losing so much control of their project, even as they were stymied in using the grand army as a bargaining chip to gain a foothold with Republic customers. Asajj kept a wary eye on them while continuing to teach her student.

To her dismay, this now involved helping Ahsoka learn to fight with the unit she had chosen, a second year batch nicknamed Dominoes for early problems in their training. Still, if her student was going to insist on being mobile through the units, Asajj preferred she have some kind of back up.

She would never admit to how nervous she was, about the eventual accounting she would face with the Count. She'd cross that bridge when Ahsoka did choose to begin working among the units, instead of settling the Jedi into Kamino.

* * *

One thing 99 had learned, working so closely with their Sister, as everyone called Ahsoka, was to be cautious. He also heard far more than many gave him credit for, dismissing him with his broken body as also having a broken mind.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and the same week that Sister left with the Dominoes to tour the army, and probably find a battle or three, he finally decided the Jedi that was like Sister could be trusted enough to tell her. Only, they were still on Kamino, and he had never been able to figure out how to tell Sister where the longnecks would not hear.

How long did he have, though, before those devices he'd seen were used?

He had to find a way, and that meant taking a risk.

Carefully, he shuffled into the office the Jedi was in, perhaps showing more of his infirmity than usual as the weight of what he feared sat upon his shoulders.

"Master Jedi, I have left my pad in my quarters. May have use of yours to type up the report?" he asked, resorting to artifice. Her pad would be Jedi issue, surely safe from prying by the longnecks.

She hesitated only a moment to look at him, then gave it over to him. "Please do, 99, while I stretch from sitting here too long." She rose, and moved to a wall to use it for resistance stretching while he typed. It took him some time to phrase it, but eventually he was able to relay the concern, and moved to hand it directly back.

To her credit, there was only a moment's spike of emotion, one that 99 was certain he would not have felt if he had not lived in Sister's care all this time. He could read even Sister's teacher better than any of his brothers.

"I have been remiss, 99. When Knight Secura and Master Fisto arrive in two days, will you accompany me back to the Temple to let the healers look you over?" the Jedi asked, and 99 wanted to exult. She understood!

"In these difficult times, Master Jedi, it might be a good idea to have a few second years accompany us?" he asked, voice quavering a little from true relief.

"As you wish, 99. Since Tano took the first-ranked group of those with her, I leave it to you to choose for us, and to appoint a liaison in your absence."

* * *

Anakin Skywalker, padawan of Obi-Wan Kenobi, was not used to being rescued. It was nearly six months into the war, and the Council was finally taking his master seriously about the idea that he was ready for the Trials. He had been pinned down, with his Torrent Company, the group that most often accompanied him on these things, with little in the way of support. Obi-Wan was managing better on his end, but could not get to him.

And then a troop ship came in from behind the droid lines, strafing with their own guns and adding some explosions with pinpoint shots from the open doors. The instant confusion was more than enough for Anakin to take advantage of, sallying forth with those men still able to pull the hard weight of battle.

Nor was he alone with his lightsaber, as a pair of green ones appeared the instant the troop ship was close enough for its occupants to join the ground battle, both in the hands of the half-size warrior leading four clones.

There wasn't any time to talk now, not with the fighting suddenly intensifying, but Anakin was intrigued by the small reinforcement team, especially the lightsaber user.

* * *

Captain Rex guided Anakin over to the troop ship where the Dominoes had remained apart from Torrent with their _jetii_. Ahsoka Tano was not of the Order, but the things she could do with the Force were known through the full Army, and they had no other word to describe that.

"Sir?" he called, respectfully, and the thin, graceful, small person came out of the inner ship, while Hevy sat on the edge and cleaned his gun. He watched as 'Sister', for so many of them, sized up their Padawan-Commander with no emotions showing currently.

Then the small one smiled, and her lekku flexed in the right way, letting Rex relax. He'd heard from the CC series that had been in Tipoca City that Ahsoka had not, actually, liked some of the Jedi all that much.

"You're Anakin Skywalker, Padawan to the Knight who first came to Kamino," she said. "I am Ahsoka Tano." She then looked at Rex. "Hey, Rex. I'm hearing good things."

Rex truly hoped his ears hadn't changed shades to the blush that felt like rising. "I try, Sir."

"You're the girl my Master met," Anakin agreed, moving closer to offer her a hand in greeting, "so yeah, I am. You had great timing, thanks... but what're you doing out here?" 

He hadn't heard a lot about her, but his Master had told him enough to make him _awfully_ curious. 

She took his hand, mouth open to answer… and she realized she already knew him, among the visions, the ones that weren't so focused on her brothers.

It made her pause, then force herself back to a normal caution when she wanted to just claim kinship with this man.

"I am. And I'm checking on my brothers, lending a hand where I can, to keep them safe."

Anakin had gone just as still, as the Force whispered and hummed along his nerves singing an awareness of her, but he shook it off. He hadn't gotten anything clear, and he didn't need to be off in the clouds. He nodded, understanding at least what she hoped to do, even though keeping anyone safe in this hellish war was a long shot. "Glad that brought you here. Welcome to the 212th. I'm sure my Master'll be here soon enough." 

And fussing, but... things had been better, lately. Since his Master had gotten to Tatooine just in time to help save Mom. And it wasn't _his_ fault another entire battalion of droids had been air-dropped between them after Obi-Wan had sent him this way. 

Ahsoka grinned, all sharp teeth and malice for the droids that had been in the way, as if she had caught half that thought. "My personal squad," she said, after that, and the gunner moved, just as the other four drifted out of the ship. "Hevy, who leads for me. Cutup, who piloted this mission. Droidbait, who manned the guns. Echo and Fives, who handled the other side of the small weapons fire."

"Sir," came from five throats, and Rex could hardly believe the change in the second year squadron. Apparently coming under her direct command had helped them find a unity they had lacked at uncorking.

"Do you need anything, Sir?" Rex asked, not certain what command rank to call her, and knowing 'Sister' was not appropriate in this case.

"Good to meet all of you," Anakin replied, flashing a smile to each of them. One -- Fives, if he'd caught the quick introductions correctly -- looked like he was going to say something, but dropped his head again, falling silent. 

Ahsoka looked back at him, a slender mark rising above her eye. Echo, the other one, shook his head for Fives, earning a more narrow look at him, before she shrugged and turned around. She didn't like for her brothers to stifle themselves, even if this was a Jedi they were meeting.

"We have our own supplies, tended our wounds," Hevy said. "If your unit has anything to pass on, Captain, I'd be glad to take it on."

Ahsoka kept the smile hidden, as Hevy opened a route for Rex to report in with anything that might be wrong.

Oh, that definitely had an undercurrent to it, Anakin thought, but he couldn't, quite, tell what it was. "Efficient bunch, huh? Well, alright. I do have a couple of wounded I ought to get back to, so... thanks again." 

"I'll help," Ahsoka said, and Anakin felt the surge of protectiveness in her five, before she flicked fingers at them. They calmed, but they all looked at Rex, and Anakin felt the 'keep her safe' in those looks. She reached back and called her canteen to her hand, the cap going on it in mid-air as she did, before she was ready to walk back to Torrent's camp.

Quick, easy manipulation with no wasted energy Anakin could see. She was good. "I sure won't say no to _that_," he said with a grin, and waved at the squad before he turned almost on his heel to head back for his men. 

She kept pace, Rex with them, and the captain knew she was opening herself to the camp's mindset. They would feel the whisper-touch and relax further, a good thing after such an intense battle. He had little negative to report back to Hevy, later, much as it galled to have to pass intel via a second year, but he wanted to let Sister know that they were mostly adapting to life with the Jedi.

* * *

Anakin had watched Ahsoka do amazing things with her healing, and sort of managed to follow her way of using the Force to do it. She was so open to him in moments like that, as if she was meant to be a part of his life, even though he'd never seen her in any of his visions.

Now, he was sitting next to Obi-Wan, while the girl had gone back to her squad. Both Rex and Cody had vanished as camp was declared secure.

"Did you know we were gonna have company?" he asked, leaning a little closer to his Master. 

Obi-Wan shook his head. "I'd heard that she had randomly arrived at various units, but mostly at aid stations and staging areas," he said. "That she would come into a full battlefield is interesting. And possibly disturbing."

"I'd say," Anakin agreed, shaking his head. "I mean... she's older than I was when we started getting into trouble, but that wasn't like _this_. And she doesn't have an adult with her, or anything. I thought Shili was a Republic world, how did she get missed? Strong as she is, she should've been caught, shouldn't she?"

Obi-Wan stroked his beard thoughtfully at that question. "Shili doesn't mandate testing, but it is strongly encouraged there. As to how she got missed, when her species is notorious for staying at home, I am uncertain.

"Perhaps she was on that colony world I have heard of… maybe Kiros? It's been some time since Master Ti mentioned it." He sighed. "As to the adult thing, I'm just as glad. The pale woman, Ventress, was uncanny and unnerving in many ways. Her knowledge of the Separatist leadership was invaluable to us, but I would prefer not to run into her again."

"You mentioned that," Anakin agreed, leaning a little closer to his Master and shaking his head. "She... didn't sound like anyone I'd really want to meet, from what you said. But still, she's so young. At the same time -- Master, I've never seen _anyone_ heal the way she does! I think I've almost got the trick of it, too." 

"Oh?" Obi-Wan turned to his padawan -- he knew that soon, they would cut the braid, but for now, Anakin was still his -- in curiosity. Healing had been a keen interest for Anakin ever since Tatooine, when it had taken both of them to preserve his mother's life. "Is it so different, then?"

Anakin nodded emphatically, his hands flicking a little in his enthusiasm. "It -- she uses her _own_ energy to supplement what she's doing, and even if she doesn't use much of that, it still makes an incredible difference. If I can get that right, with everything I've got to offer..." 

That got a full stare of awe, as the implications rang very clearly for Obi-Wan. "We really must encourage her to meet our healers… and help you make it work for yourself, my padawan."

Anakin, so strong, healing like that? The Order could not ask for better.

He relaxed a little at Obi-Wan's instant, emphatic support and interest, and nodded again. "Yeah," he agreed. "I really don't want her to leave, if she _can_ stay, until I figure it out completely. It'll keep so many more alive, if I'm not limited to what they still have available..." 

"I'll speak to my Commander, and learn what I may." Obi-Wan then shrugged. "It might be wise, after all, to expose her to Jedi ways, as Force Adepts often need small pushes toward finding the most moral way to use the Force."

Anakin made a quietly amused noise -- he wasn't always so sure the Jedi way was the most moral one, given how many times it meant looking away from suffering, or messing with someone's mind -- but nodded. "All right. Sounds good. I like her, anyway." 

"Do you?" Obi-Wan shook his head. "She unnerved me. Such deep focus, at such a young age, with a solid edge of pragmatism that worries me for how it might go in the end." He sighed. "But then, I was young once, and saw ones like her, dedicated to a specific cause, and blind to anything outside that cause."

"Master," Anakin said, with some amusement, "I remember when _I_ unnerved you. But I can't argue with what you say, either." 

That got him a tussle of his hair. "You still do sometimes, but in the good way."

Anakin leaned into the tussling, enjoying the contact, and let things go quiet.

* * *

The reckoning came sooner than Asajj wanted. 

She had been retrieving something of her own, something that had been her master's, when the Force shook around her and she knew that she had to face her fate.

"I told you to tie up loose ends, not make more!"

The lightning burned, and she could not get her lightsabers up to contend with it. This would be how she died? Caught unawares by a man that had only meant to use her, had caused her to aid and abet slavery that was, she could see, even more abhorrent than what she had known?

"She will see you dead!" Asajj snarled, before throwing herself into the fight fully, refusing to let him win without causing him permanent harm.

"I look forward to the attempt, worthless one!" Dooku informed her coldly, and set about proving his mastery of Makashi.

* * *

They had been sleeping, having discussed, briefly, the invitation to remain with the 212th.

Ahsoka, their beloved Sister, came up screaming, voice moving into the high pitches of Togruti whistles of pain and grief quickly.

Hevy was the first to reach her from where she had flung herself in the first panicked reaction to what the Force was giving her. The others followed, surrounding her with their bodies and their hearts, trying to calm her away from the wild-eyed, frantic reactions.

As suddenly as it had all begun, Ahsoka slumped in their care, sobbing for all she was worth.

"Asajj is dead," she whispered, some time later, a limp rag-doll in their care.

The Dominoes closed their eyes, sharing the grief more distantly. Ventress had not had time for them… but she had doted on Ahsoka, and been a part of their lives because of it.

* * *

The need to share everything was at war with not actually knowing the Jedi that Shaak Ti had brought him to. 99 liked routine and rhythm, something far more disturbed by Call to Arms than he sometimes knew how to cope with.

Yet, as his brothers rested from having been operated on, he relayed to these healers that the chips he had told them about were placed in every single vod, implanted as soon as the brain developed enough to properly be connected.

"And you never told Ahsoka Tano or Asajj Ventress?" Vokara Che asked, consulting the notes they had on the people of Kamino for the names.

"It was never safe to. I do not touch the Force as they do. I am only a failed soldier," 99 said. "If I could speak in the mind as they seem to, perhaps I could have."

Shaak reached over and touched his arm. "It is alright. Master Che asks, so that we know how best to talk to them about it, when they have questions."

"Oh, yes. Yes. Sister will be very angry, though Ventress will not care. She only cares about Sister."

Shaak and Vokara exchanged a look over the head of their informant, and Shaak made plans to see just how healthy, or unhealthy, the relationship between the young huntress and her teacher actually was.

* * *

Obi-Wan stood outside the hatch of the ship, and waited until the Togruta inside came down. He noted the washed out colors of her lekku, and the too old look of her eyes with concern. Yet she met him with a solid air of attentiveness, and so he pressed on.

"I wished to invite you to consider staying with my unit, for a time, to observe how the men are adjusting to the Fleet and the Jedi alike. I feel you would learn more that way than your tour of units can give you for the short times you've touched base with them."

Ahsoka tipped her head to the side, then turned. "Hevy? Will you be able to report to Commander Cody or Captain Rex, if we stay?"

Hevy came up behind her, and looked at Obi-Wan evenly. "We're ready for that, sir," he answered. "Where does Ahsoka fall in this idea of yours?"

"Hmm… would you be willing to fill the role of a Commander as well, as our padawans do?"

She nodded once. "Until the Force calls me elsewhere?" she asked to clarify.

"That will work, Ahsoka Tano. I thought it was merely your concern for the men driving you to journey as you have," Obi-Wan admitted.

"Yes, but the Force wants me to safeguard them. I listen to it, as my — "

Her words choked off, and Hevy rested a hand on her shoulder in comfort.

"Sorry, sir. Her teacher is walking far away now," Hevy explained. "It hit her last night."

Obi-Wan considered the woman that had, for love of a student, turned traitor on Count Dooku, providing intel that had helped them evade the initial trap of the war. He then nodded once, trying not to consider his own teacher's death, yet understanding what a broken bond meant.

"Report to Captain Rex, Hevy, within the hour, if you would, to learn the redeployment strategy," he said. "Ahsoka, you have my sympathy. Perhaps you can make your way to Anakin with your squad leader."

"We'll be there," Ahsoka promised softly.

* * *

They had been with the 212th a full three weeks, when the medical team was sent inoculation kits, and ordered to inject everyone of the G.A.R.

Ahsoka, being her suspicious self, went straight to Anakin and Obi-Wan to find out why.

The answer enraged her, but at the same time, she was just as glad to learn 99 had managed to find a solution before it was a problem. The feverish visions of carnage as the men fired on Jedi would not come to pass now. She could let go of that fear, and give her all to two things. One was finding Asajj's killer, and becoming good enough to kill them. The other, and this one had more of her attention, was to find out who the Sith manipulating the Republic was, that such a thing had been placed in her brothers.

She didn't even mind sticking it out with Anakin and Obi-Wan, as the war kept killing her brothers, and endangering others around the galaxy.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, Ilyena_Sylph, for loaning me your Anakin.


End file.
